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Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

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  • #46
    Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

    Slick, bringing us the latest in cutting-edge 1930's science.

    Firstly, the idea that because DNA doesn't code for proteins, that it's irrelevant to development (junk DNA), and thus mutations involving it are meaningless, is an outdated concept. Slick should put down his musty college textbook and familiarize himself with the ENCODE Project, which released a bevy of papers (30ish) a little over a year ago detailing the findings of over a decade's worth of research.

    ENCODE Project Writes Eulogy for Junk DNA
    Junk DNA — Not So Useless After All | TIME.com

    I strongly suspect this is only the tip of the iceberg, as well.

    Secondly, his point regarding most DNA not coding for proteins is irrelevant. What's important is the ratio of harmful-to-beneficial mutations, not the exact number. Focusing solely on the 2% of of DNA which codes for proteins may lower the number of harmful mutations by 98%, but it also lowers the number of beneficial mutations by 98%, leaving us with the same issue: The number of beneficial mutations being swamped by the number of harmful mutations.

    Furthermore, he's actually undermining his own position, as he's giving random mutation far fewer opportunities to produce novelty. When your entire position is based on happenstance creating brilliant technology -- and underneath all the bluster, that's what Darwinism is -- you need as many chances as you can get.


    Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
    found a cool paper...

    The average person has 175 nucleotide mutations per generation. If most genetic mutations were harmful, the odds of two people every having a healthy baby would be practically zero.
    I'd wager that most people aren't entirely healthy, with everyone having at least some minor health issue. Your problem is, when you think of harmful, you're limiting it to only that which is catastrophic. This is not the case, and it's the reason why the concept of the neutral mutation fails (non-beneficial and non-catastrophic does not make something neutral). There is no such a thing as a neutral mutation, only those with varying levels of harm, from near-neutral to catastrophic. Unfortunately for Darwinists, near-neutral mutations can accumulate, producing much bigger issues. Essentially, the exact same principle behind Darwinian evolution, only from a realistic 21st-century perspective, rather than a fantasist 19th-century perspective.



    Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
    But some are detrimental right? Sure, but even mildly detrimental mutations can be potentiating mutations. That is, the change caused by one mutation reduces efficiency of some protein, but that mutation, when combined with another mutation results in a huge GAIN IN FUNCTION!
    If you can prove this, you will have become a hero to Darwinists, worldwide, as gains in novel function are one of the hearts of the controversy.


    Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
    such an example:

    http://www.plosbiology.org/article/i...l.pbio.0060085

    In this study, an RNA enzyme was placed in a situation where it was imperfectly copied. By reducing the amount of substrate available to the enzyme in each iteration of the experiment, the researchers could select for improved function in the enzyme. The final enzyme was genetically analyzed and found to have 11 mutations. The final enzyme had a 90-fold improvement in enzyme activity. This improvement occurred in 70 hours. What’s really interesting is that there were four main mutational groups (M1, M2, M3, M4) identified in the final enzyme. Using some cool tools, the researchers built enzymes with each mutation by itself. The M4 mutation, by itself, resulted in a 2-fold decrease in enzyme efficiency.

    But in the presence of any of the other three mutation groups, M4 increased the efficiency of the other mutations. That is how even a harmful mutation can result in a greater overall benefit. Even if a mutation is harmful, if it isn’t harmful enough to kill the organism, then it could very well be the change needed for future organisms to have greater benefits!
    The above article is such a sham, that my favorite blog -- Evolution News & Views -- didn't even feel it warranted a thorough rebuttal, just a quick laugh. Looking at what these scientists did, I tend to agree.

    "What about evolution is random and what is not?" - Evolution News & Views

    Originally posted by Evolution News & Views
    Here's another one for my "you can't make this stuff up" file. I kid you not, this is a news story about a new peer-reviewed paper in PLoS Biology by Brian Paegel and Gerald Joyce of The Scripps Research Institute which explains that (all emphasis from here on is mine)

    they have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes.
    I couldn't write a funnier script if I tried. Sadly, these guys just don't get the joke.

    The evolution of molecules via scientific experiment is not new. The first RNA enzymes to be "evolved" in the lab were generated in the 1990s. But what is exciting about this work is that the process has been made automatic. Thus evolution is directed by a machine without requiring human intervention-other then providing the initial ingredients and switching the machine on.
    But wait it gets better.

    Throughout the process, the evolution-machine can propagate the reaction itself, because whenever the enzyme population size reaches a predetermined level, the machine removes a fraction of the population and replaces the starting chemicals needed for the reaction to continue.
    What? Predetermined? Predetermined by whom or by what? Oh, the evolution machine, which itself is a result of intelligent agency.

    The authors sum it all up very nicely.

    This beautifully illustrates what about evolution is random and what is not.
    So, they've created a front-loaded computer-controlled system (read: directed system) with a predetermined goal, and this somehow replicates evolution? Geez... their view of evolution sounds a lot closer to I.D. than to Darwinism. Methinks Slick should read these articles through a little more clearer before he posts them.


    Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
    Think of the worst mutation you can have- frame shift. You change the reading frame and make a totally wrong protein. Awful, right? Maybe not though! Sexual organisms have TWO copies of every gene (except for some genes on the male sex chromosome). One of the copies of a gene can be massively corrupted, but just like having two hard drives with the same information, our bodies can just ignore the corrupted information. We still have a good copy of the gene!

    (probably the real answer to why sex evolved, something Bill Nye alluded to. It's an insurance policy for harmful mutations)
    That's called redundancy, and it's a design principle.

    Redundancy (engineering) - Wikipedia

    Funny how those keep popping up in biology.

    Comment


    • #47
      Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

      Lame, this thread was supposed to be about what is science and not, to bad devolved into another debate about evolution.

      Comment


      • #48
        Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

        Originally posted by immortality View Post
        Lame, this thread was supposed to be about what is science and not, to bad devolved into another debate about evolution.
        People have been debating what is and is not science for centuries. Google the demarcation problem. Not even brilliant philosophers of science have figured it out, so I doubt anyone in this thread will. All I know is that blindly asserting certain positions aren't science has become one of the favorite defense mechanisms for people trying to protect their worldviews.

        Comment


        • #49
          Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

          Originally posted by Hicks View Post
          But is it truly adaptation, or just being luckier with regards to your genetics than your cousins are? To me, adaptation is about reading and reacting to a situation, whereas it sounds like natural selection is just about being born with the right configuration that allows you to live and/or prosper in ways your cousins can't do because they 'lost' the 'genetic lottery'. To me, that doesn't sound like adaptation. I don't think these animals are becoming more fit for anything besides the fact that they were luckily born that way (or their ancestors were) by chance. I'm just not seeing the adaptation here; I'm seeing luck while your fellow animals die because they weren't so lucky. Thus, I don't really see that as an evolution, not in the sense of what I thought that word was supposed to mean, anyway.

          To me, as I thought I understood it, the concepts of adaptation and evolution were about changing to fit your circumstances, but natural selection does not appear to be that to me, for reasons already stated.
          I know you weren't asking me, but...

          The species adapts through the mechanism you guys have been discussing. The individual organism is what it is...a good fit or not, a better fit or not, the same old fit with irrelevant changes from the previous generations, whatever...but the 'evolution' is the gradual change the species goes through, as a result of the reproductive success of the 'lucky' individuals. No, there's no guiding light in this theory, reading the situation and pointing the way to a better adaptation.

          Doesn't mean you can't believe in a guiding light or intelligence, but the observed changes can be accounted for by the multigenerational, adaptive 'mechanism' itself.


          [~]) ... Cheers! Go Pacers!

          Comment


          • #50
            Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

            Originally posted by kester99 View Post
            Doesn't mean you can't believe in a guiding light or intelligence, but the observed changes can be accounted for by the multigenerational, adaptive 'mechanism' itself.
            No one's buying it.

            Comment


            • #51
              Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

              Originally posted by GrangeRusHibbert View Post
              The above article is such a sham... didn't even feel it warranted a thorough rebuttal, just a quick laugh.
              That's too bad, I'd love to hear it.

              The main author Gerry Joyce is generally thought to be on the short list of future Nobel Prize winners in biology since his papers are consistently among the most cited research papers in the field. The secondary author Brain Paegel (then a graduate student) has launched his own faculty career and has already won many prestigious awards as well, including an "NIH Director's New Innovator Award" which is one of the hardest biomedical grants to get.

              Gerry's wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Joyce

              Brian's faculty page: https://www.scripps.edu/research/faculty/paegel
              The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

              Comment


              • #52
                Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
                A creation event is, I suppose, one possibility!
                That hurdle needs to be cleared, showing that it cannot be Creationsim, before mocking Creationism. That's what really irks me on this subject.
                Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                  Not following you... did you think that Bill Nye was mocking creationism? I thought he may have erred by actually declining to rebut a lot of the more fact-deficient points of Mr. Ham, seemingly so that he could stay on his plan to actually focus on the actual debate topic, which was not about the nuts and bolts of evolutionary theory but rather: "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era?"

                  I admit that some authors who write about evolution lack tact when they go a bit further than just detailing a lack of evidence fro creationism and make stereotypical, snide, or condescending remarks. But I think you can see from the postings of a person here that hard core anti-evolution supporters can also be rude, tactless egomaniacs unwilling to listen to anyone. Certainly compared to that type of tone, I thought that Mr. Nye was very gentle.

                  I don't think that young earth creationists are stupid, or evil, or even that they necessarily shouldn't have the beliefs that they have, from a faith perspective. I merely think that when they claim that their assertions are not based on faith but are rather grounded in science, they naturally have the scientific responsibility to use the currency of science, DATA, to verify their claims and to at least offer testable ideas so that other scientists can independently check to see if they have merit.

                  Put plainly, if you claim to be a practicing medical doctor, I'd expect you to be able to demonstrate that competency.
                  If you claim to be a accomplished writer, I'd expect you to be able to show me something you've written.
                  If you claim to be in the business of practicing science, I'd expect you to be able to show me your hypotheses, your experiments, your data, your conclusions, and what you think may be done to test your conclusions.
                  The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                    I'm just saying in general. 99.9% of the time when this conversation gets going, Creationists are looked at as stupid, inferior, whatever you want to call it.

                    Science that we thought was the truth has been disproven throughout the history of science. Why people take science like 100% fact, when it's not supposed to represent findings that way is beyond me. We want to talk about scientific way of thinking, but rarely there's any scientific way of thinking going on. In order to be truly scientific, you would need to have an open mind. Not being able to prove something false, yet treating it as false, isn't an open mind.

                    I think it's fascinating that Einstein commonly used the term "God" when talking about the creation of the universe. I understand there's a difference in the way he was using the term, and the Christian God, but it's still interesting to think a man like Einstein openly discusses the possibillity, while those who follow him shun it.
                    Last edited by Since86; 02-07-2014, 11:15 AM.
                    Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                      Originally posted by immortality View Post
                      I'm arguing his 2nd, how do you create an experiment that the genetic code is created by something intelligent.
                      Is that something you would test in a lab? The origin of something that already exists?

                      As for the 3rd premise you can also argue nature created genetic code for various diseases, viruses aren't complex but they effect so much of a persons body it becomes difficult to cure, our body is not perfect, it is very fragile if you look at the various diseases and what they can do.
                      How can you argue this? I'm not saying you can't, but you say you can and then just mention that viruses aren't complex and human bodies are very susceptible to getting infected. What does that prove?

                      As for evolving bacteria, here is a cool NPR report http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013...on-never-stops .
                      That's interesting. Do they have any insight as to what was happening in there to make the new generations breed more quickly?

                      Another example is when you try to study cells, they are stained to a particular color, called gram-staining. Some cells evolve to protect themselves against the stains, but then lose their ability to communicate.
                      Wait here. You say 'evolve to protect themselves'. I kind of take issue with this language because again it suggests purpose-driven change, whereas I thought this was all random?

                      Evolution in smaller organisms is much easier to see because of their small genome, but if you see that it took 25 years for just some bacteria evolve whose genome is much smaller than ours then you can imagine how long it will take evolution to take place in animals.

                      I just wanted to say that, you can believe whatever you want religious or not, but concepts based on religions do not belong in a science class, it's why I am disappointed in when some states are requiring to teach creationism in a science class, as it does follow the basic concepts of science.
                      I agree that religion doesn't belong in science class. I think it would be fair enough if, when teaching it to children, the teacher simply admits the barriers of current scientific knowledge on the subject, admit what they don't know, and then mention (because odds are the students are mostly coming from religious families) that many people of faith have their own concepts of what happened or is happening, but that information is beyond the scope of science and that if the kids are interested in learning more, they should either ask their families or consult their local religious leaders. I think that would be fair enough.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                        Not being able to prove something false, yet treating it as false, isn't an open mind.
                        If you are unable to prove something false because it is inherently incapable of being proven false, like something that Ken Ham would say:

                        "This happened because of a miracle of God. To rebut this to my satisfaction, you must prove to me that God cannot do such miracles, and furthermore the only proof that I will accept must also be written in this book that I hold in my hands, since it is the best science book ever!"

                        Nobody should treat such a belief as false per se, but every reasonable person, it seems to me, should treat it as a belief rather than as a scientific claim, and clearly a principle that is outside the realm of science.

                        As to Einstein, he was raised Jewish but considered himself an agnostic. He was asked countless times if he believed in God. One particularly answer he gave:

                        Originally posted by Einstein
                        Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things...

                        (Later in life he was a little more direct in distancing his openness to the possibility of God existing from the view of an interventionist God):

                        "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment".
                        The main aspect of Einstein's views that people seem to often shun is his insistence that science and religion need not be in conflict. But who is it who shuns that idea? A lot of people of both sides of the debate. It seems to me that many creationists are at least as likely (if not more likely) to paint an evolutionary scientist as some sort of dangerous agent of the devil than many evolutionary scientists are likely to paint a creationist as stupid, inferior, whatever you want to call it. I think most scientists ignored creationists until the point where creationists claimed to be doing science and insisted on teaching their beliefs as if they were based in science.
                        Last edited by Slick Pinkham; 02-07-2014, 12:16 PM.
                        The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

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                        • #57
                          Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                          Originally posted by kester99 View Post
                          I know you weren't asking me, but...

                          The species adapts through the mechanism you guys have been discussing. The individual organism is what it is...a good fit or not, a better fit or not, the same old fit with irrelevant changes from the previous generations, whatever...but the 'evolution' is the gradual change the species goes through, as a result of the reproductive success of the 'lucky' individuals. No, there's no guiding light in this theory, reading the situation and pointing the way to a better adaptation.

                          Doesn't mean you can't believe in a guiding light or intelligence, but the observed changes can be accounted for by the multigenerational, adaptive 'mechanism' itself.
                          So you're saying I need to 'zoom out' a little bit on my perspective here, basically? Stop looking at each tree, start looking at the forest (a forest with only one kind of tree, that is)? I can appreciate that perspective. However, I still see the same thing (and I don't think you were suggesting otherwise, though I'm not entirely sure) that I saw before: The unfit dying off while the better fit keep making more of whatever their species is, resulting in more of the fit kind and less of the unfit kind. It means the species as a whole should continue to do better in said environment as long as enough fit are produced to makeup for the dying unfit. Is that adaptation? Yes and no. The species is getting better at living in its environment, but not because it did anything other than exist, as opposed to 'reading and reacting' in order to better itself. It's like the genetic version of 'guess and check', basically; throwing crap against the wall and seeing which parts stick, so to speak.

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                          • #58
                            Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                            Originally posted by Slick Pinkham View Post
                            That's too bad, I'd love to hear it.

                            The main author Gerry Joyce is generally thought to be on the short list of future Nobel Prize winners in biology since his papers are consistently among the most cited research papers in the field. The secondary author Brain Paegel (then a graduate student) has launched his own faculty career and has already won many prestigious awards as well, including an "NIH Director's New Innovator Award" which is one of the hardest biomedical grants to get.

                            Gerry's wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Joyce

                            Brian's faculty page: https://www.scripps.edu/research/faculty/paegel
                            You don't see the joke in a human intelligence making a software script on a computer to simulate evolution? It's like they may as well assume that NBA2K perfectly replicates the real NBA.

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                            • #59
                              Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                              Originally posted by Since86 View Post
                              I'm just saying in general. 99.9% of the time when this conversation gets going, Creationists are looked at as stupid, inferior, whatever you want to call it.

                              Science that we thought was the truth has been disproven throughout the history of science. Why people take science like 100% fact, when it's not supposed to represent findings that way is beyond me. We want to talk about scientific way of thinking, but rarely there's any scientific way of thinking going on. In order to be truly scientific, you would need to have an open mind. Not being able to prove something false, yet treating it as false, isn't an open mind.

                              I think it's fascinating that Einstein commonly used the term "God" when talking about the creation of the universe. I understand there's a difference in the way he was using the term, and the Christian God, but it's still interesting to think a man like Einstein openly discusses the possibillity, while those who follow him shun it.
                              I think it's at least two problems, as I see it: There are religious folk who want their faith-based beliefs taught as science, when it's not science, and this is very irritating to most secular scientists (and I agree with them on that). Then there are non-religious folks who treat modern science like it's the end of the book on any given topic, nothing else to see here, move it along, and that's a silly attitude to have in general with regards to science because the point of science is to keep looking, keep testing, keep trying, and then make the best assumptions you can based on your evidence and experiments, but it's NOT about declaring truths, generally speaking, either, and the arrogance of secular people in this regard can be quite irritating to me.

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                              • #60
                                Re: Bill Nye totally crushes Phil Ham in creationism debate

                                I admire Einstein's perspective, based on the quote from him above. I generally feel the same way as him.

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